IT IS now clear that the union movement made a bad mistake when it backed the introduction of the compulsory superannuation scheme devised by Labor’s Paul Keating, urged on by the ACTU secretary at the time, Bill Kelty. To this day, there is still no detailed policy report showing that net economic and social gains flow from forcing everyone to hand over a growing slice of their salary to the richly rewarded fund managers in the nation’s booming financial sector. Appointed by the super fund trustees to “invest” the money, these managers usually focus on taking huge punts on the financial markets. Simply swapping the ownership of existing shares and fancy financial derivatives between fund managers and other market players creates little of economic value, however – unlike direct investment in productive new capacity…